Skimmer going crazy, corals not happy

[Seachelle]

Today, I noticed that my skimmer was bubbling over. My tank is 85 gallons, 6 months old and I have 3 fish - the most recent addition was about a month ago. My skimmer has been running well, but last week I noticed it was running kind of dry, and there wasn't as much in the collection cup as usual. I messed with the valve a few days ago, but it didn't seem to change anything, so I left it alone. I've been dosing microbacter 7 a few times a week to help with some algae I've been getting and also dosing Hydrogen Peroxide (1 ml/10 gallons). I turn off the skimmer after dosing this at night, and turn it back on in the morning. There's never been an issue until today. Could the MB7 be making the skimmer overflow? I noticed that the water is kind of cloudy, and some of my corals don't look happy. I tested my water and the parameters are:
SG 1.026
Phosphate. 05
Nitrate 6.8
Ph 8.2
Alk 7.7

I did test for ammonia and it looks like it might be at .01. I'm not sure what could be causing the spike, but I have 2 conches in the tank, and I've only seen one of them out the last few days. I'm thinking it might be dead under the sand, but would that be enough to cause a spike? The conch is maybe 2 inches long.

I'm doing a 20% water change tonight. I also changed the carbon in the mesh bag I have in the sump. Right now, I'm running the skimmer, but it's just pouring back into the tank. I want to keep the aeration, but if this is the MB7, when will the skimmer go back to normal? Could this also be a bacterial bloom?

 

[SunnyX]

Hello,

To start, dosing MB7 and Hydrogen Peroxide is counter productive and could possibly be causing you issues. The peroxide will indiscriminately kill off bacteria, which in turn can decompose and possibly cause ammonia levels to increase. Also, 85ML is a rather large dose. Most who do use peroxide will remove the rock and dip it separate from the system.

Bacteria blooms in large enough quantities can cause skimmers to over flow but my question is what is causing the bacteria to bloom in such a dense volume? Generally, an overdose of a carbon source will cause a bloom but a death in the tank could also be the culprit.

My recommendation is to nix the peroxide and give it a few days for the system to settle down. The water change you mentioned is a good idea.

Good luck

-Sonny

 

[Seachelle]

Hello,

To start, dosing MB7 and Hydrogen Peroxide is counter productive and could possibly be causing you issues. The peroxide will indiscriminately kill off bacteria, which in turn can decompose and possibly cause ammonia levels to increase. Also, 85ML is a rather large dose. Most who do use peroxide will remove the rock and dip it separate from the system.

Bacteria blooms in large enough quantities can cause skimmers to over flow but my question is what is causing the bacteria to bloom in such a dense volume? Generally, an overdose of a carbon source will cause a bloom but a death in the tank could also be the culprit.

My recommendation is to nix the peroxide and give it a few days for the system to settle down. The water change you mentioned is a good idea.

Good luck

-Sonny

Thanks for the quick reply! I'm sorry, but I mistyped. I'm dosing 1ml per 10 gallons, so 8.5 ml of H2O2.

The water is slightly cloudy right now, so I'm not sure it's a large bloom. I cleaned the skimmer pump about a month ago and Ive checked the venturi and pipe, and everything about the skimmer appears to be working well. But the only way I can get it to stop overflowing is to hold the skimmer up about 4 inches or to block the air off completely.

I don't dose carbon, and the carbon I have in the sump is in a mesh bag, and should have probably been changed 2 weeks ago, but I just changed it tonight hoping it would clear the water up.

I could go digging for the conch, but I'm worried doing that would stir up too much debris and contribute to any ammonia.

I guess for now, I'll do the water change and hold off on any dosing. The fish look fine, but I'm worried about the corals that look unhappy